It's a Profoundly Depressing Time for Australians Wanting a Stable Government

Prime Minister Tony Abbott addresses reporters after today's announcement of a leadership spill

It's happened. A leadership spill has been scheduled for the federal cabinet next Tuesday in which three Western Australian MPs - Luke Simpkins, Don Randall, and Dennis Jensen - will demand Tony Abbott be stripped of his prime ministership and be replaced by a yet to be named challenger. Scott Morrison has confirmed that he will not be up for selection.

With eerie overtones of Labor's 2010 leadership switcheroo, this is a decision that's been bubbling away since Abbott's awarding of the Order of Australia to Prince Philip. The gaff was promptly followed by a disastrous election for the Queensland Liberals, which itself had come after a similar outcome in Victoria. As Fairfax's chief political reporter, Mark Kenny, described of the Queensland election, "Its effect was to awaken Liberals from their compliant torpor towards a new realisation that their collective decline is structural rather than presentational, and that it will not go away."

So three Sandgropers have decided a structural reshuffling is in order. The two possible contenders to score the job are, of course, Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull. However the prime minister used a press statement to declare he still had Julie Bishop's support. Her own statement was released 20 minutes later and reiterated her support, but with the qualification that cabinet solidarity was first priority. As of writing, Turnbull is yet to directly address his position.

Whether Abbott has the support to survive a challenge is yet to be seen. Education Minister Christopher Pyne earlier appeared on the TODAY Show on which he was coy about popular sentiment. "I can't speak for all of my colleagues in a secret ballot," he said. "But I assume that the party room knows that the worst thing we could possibly do is change leadership right now."

According to Tom Switzer, who is a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Sydney, the situation is likely to be too far gone for Abbott. "There is so much blood in the water," he said, "I might be wrong, but if I'm wrong this will only prolong the agony. The game's up."

If Abbott does lose out, the most popular choice for leader could be Turnbull, as a series of IPSOS Fairfax polls have indicated. Despite this, he will have opposition, with many of the Liberal Party's more conservative backbenchers regarding him as too left. So while he seems a perfect solution for the immediate term, his personal ideology is unlikely to bring the party long term peace. Neither would a Turnbull leadership result in more harmonious discourse between Labor and the Coalition. Bill Shorten recently quipped at a press club that, "Malcolm Turnbull may wear nicer suits but he's just Tony Abbott in a nicer suit."

So today marks full-circle for Abbott's blame soaked ascension to the top job, which is an irony that's not above him either. As he earnestly declared earlier, "We are not the Labor Party. We are not the Labor Party and we are not going to repeat the chaos and the instability of the Labor years."

As Tom sees it, just about anyone from any party will now find it hard to govern, given that spills seem to have become the norm. "The political cycle in Australia has changed," he said. "It's a hostile senate, it's a poll-driven political culture, there is a relentless media and Twitter cycle. This is a real problem here in Australia and it will be very difficult to any political leader for a long time."

Follow Julian on Twitter: @morgansjulian